


Changeling

by nickofhearts



Series: A Study in Perspective [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, M/M, Possessed!Noctis, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 07:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9481289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickofhearts/pseuds/nickofhearts
Summary: The difference between murder and execution is that one is personal and the other practical.





	1. two can keep a secret

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamingcicadas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamingcicadas/gifts).



There's a monster living in his son, and its name is _Izunia_.

The first time it happens, Noctis is five, sitting in his lap while Regis reviews reports from the war. Regis had promised him a bedtime story, and Noctis had been adamant about getting it, no matter how long it took Regis to finish up for the night. He's just about to give up the towering stack of papers as a lost cause and tuck Noctis into bed before returning anew, when Noctis sits up from where he'd almost dozed off, at once completely alert.

"Why don't you just—" Noctis asks, little finger pointing at the map, "cut them off here?"

That was an efficient method of isolating a large percentage of the Nif troops, but it would also leave their own soldiers in a dangerous position. At best, maybe a third of their people would survive the encounter; at worst, they'd all be sacrificed for the sake of decimating a dozen Nif regiments.

"Hundreds of people would die, Noctis," Regis tells him, too shocked to even consider how his five-year-old son had come up with a strategy his own advisors would never have put forth.

"People die in a war," Noctis answers, the tone of his voice lacking any emotion whatsoever, and it chills Regis to the _bone._

-

It's only a few weeks later that Noctis is attacked just outside the city, the security detail's panicked screams on the phone something that will haunt Regis' nightmares for months after.

He rushes to Noctis' side as swiftly as he can, but he already knows it's too late. _Please,_ he begs of the Six, _please not my son._

The sight that greets him when he arrives is worse than anything he could have ever imagined. His son with the use of a full Armiger, outlined in red. Noctis seems to be _enjoying_ himself, darting around and through the dancing blades of the daemon's overabundance of arms, faster than anyone should be able to move. By the time Noctis is finished with her, there's nothing more than pieces left, littering the ground beneath him.

Noctis flashes him a look, eyes as red as the blood of the retainers that had gotten in the way. "Did you come to save me, father? I can look after _myself._ "

But in the next moment, Noctis' eyes fade back to the blue that Regis knows they are, a sleepy frown on his son's face as he rubs at them blearily. "Dad!" he shouts excitedly, running to let Regis pick him up.

Regis holds Noctis tight in his arms, trying to forget the smile on the _other_ 's face in the midst of so much carnage.

-

Regis has almost managed to convince himself that the whole thing was a hallucination brought on by shock and heightened emotions when the next incident occurs. The Kingsglaive had brought back a Nif commander in a raid on one of their fortresses, but it's been ten days now, and no one's gotten anything out of the man.

It's frustrating enough that he puts off everything else for the next week trying to pry _something_ from their prisoner, but to no avail.

The next morning on his way to the holding cells, Regis stops cold in the hallway watching Noctis come towards him, eyes burning crimson.

"I took care of it," the monster says, wearing Noctis' face, and Regis almost draws his swords against it. "Ask him anything you like," the thing says with a smile so unlike Noctis that Regis can't possibly conflate the two in his head, "he'll _sing_ for you like a bird."

"Don't—" Regis tells it, incandescent with anger. "Don't _take care_ of things."

There's a moment when Regis thinks it's going to attack him, and he's not certain what he would do then, but the moment passes.

"Dad?" Noctis asks suddenly, "did you finish what you were working on? You promised we could go fishing!"

"Of course, Noctis," Regis tells his son, pulling him into his arms. He doesn't pause to wonder what _else_ he might be holding so close to his heart.

-

It's only because Regis has Noctis under careful watch for the next few months that he realizes how much he's missed. There are scattered moments during the day when Noctis seems distracted by something invisible to anyone else, looking at an unoccupied corner of the room or mumbling things to himself that seem complete gibberish. If not for the other incidents, Regis would have put it off as childhood fancy, but now he has to ask.

"Noctis," Regis starts, pulling the bed covers up while Noctis blinks at him sleepily. "Who do you talk to when you think no one else is looking?"

Noctis' eyes flash red for a second, a trick of the light perhaps, or the monster waking up.

"That's Izunia," Noctis answers, frowning a little as he adds, "he said I shouldn't tell anyone about him because they can't see him, and they wouldn't understand." Noctis sits up as something suddenly occurs to him. "Can you see him too?" he asks, almost excitedly.

 _Izunia_ is the name of the Imperial Chancellor, Regis knows. Has he done something to Noctis?

"No," Regis answers, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. "I can't see him. What does he look like, Noctis?"

Noctis thinks for a moment, then reaches down to take Regis' hand in his. He pulls it up to a height with his face, pointing it at the mirror.

How wrong he was, Regis finally understands. It's not a monster in his son at all, the monster _is his son._


	2. if one of them is dead

Regis is afraid of Noctis getting older not because of what awaits him, but because Regis wonders more and more often what will he _become_?

It's as if now that the monster has been named, it thinks it can talk to Regis at will.

"Wouldn't you murder one person to save a thousand?" Izunia asks one night in Noctis' childish voice, though the lazy slow drawl he uses has nothing of Regis' son in it. "If you can see where the pressure points are, wouldn't you want to _pressure_ them?"

-

The next day, a bird crashes through the glass of a small side window of the audience chamber, startling everyone present. It's an unusual occurence, but not one for concern until Noctis runs towards it before anyone can stop him.

"Noctis!" Regis scolds, but his son already has the bird's limp body cradled in his hands. 

Regis feels horror paralyze him as Noctis murmurs a word in the _god_ tongue, something he'd never imagined hearing out of a human throat, and white light fills Noctis' palms. It's not unlike that the Crystal emits, and a gasp reverbrates through the room as the bird revives, fluttering dazedly into the air again before finding its way back outside.

Noctis laughs, clapping his hands, and he turns to Regis with an expression of such joy though Regis can only offer an empty smile in return.

"He really is the Chosen," Clarus says in a hushed whisper at Regis' side. "Not even the Oracle can bring back the dead." 

_Chosen_ , Regis thinks, for what?

-

"You have to stop him," Drautos says, coughing blood onto the floor at Regis' feet. "You have to—" 

Regis isn't surprised to see Noctis not far behind, shaking his head sadly as Drautos crumples to the floor. He doesn't have a mark on him, nothing to show that the _Captain of the Kingsglaive_ lies dying at Regis' feet by his hand.

Noctis is a teenager now, but the expression on his face that accompanies those startling red eyes hasn't changed in all this time.

"Excuse me, _father_ ," Noctis says, and a sword materializes through Drautos' back, twisting under Noctis' hand.

-

Noctis has been conscpicuously absent for all the negotiations of the treaty signing with Niflheim, considering how _concerned_ he's always been with foreign politics, offering opinions that Regis in the direst of straits can't imagine being able to stomach.

It's not until Emperor Iedolas walks off the airship that Regis realizes how long he's been biding his time.

There's but a difference of seconds between the Niflheim contingent arriving at the Citadel, and Noctis ripping the Emperor's throat open with a dagger, blood drenching his pristine white robes, to match Noctis' eyes. 

But the greatest surprise is what comes next, when Noctis turns to the Imperial Chancellor with a smile warmer than any Regis has ever seen on his son's face. 

"Hello, _my love._ "

-

Regis can't even follow the fight after, flashing swords and clanging steel in the air high above them, punctuated by the screams of people running out of the way of great swathes of fire erupting on the ground, spikes of ice slamming into stone. In the time it might take Regis to cast a single spell, he watches lightning split the skies and water spill from illusory clouds.

Noctis is faster, quicker with spellwork and to dart out of the way of a sword, but Ardyn brushes off hits like they're nothing, relentless in his pursuit.

Regis thinks for a brief shameful moment filled with relief that Noctis has finally met his match when Ardyn slams him to the floor, but the second the blade should have pierced his monstrous heart, it phases away into nothingness at Noctis' touch.

-

Ardyn _Izunia_ turns to him, face twisted like a daemon's, and he says—

"I may look like a monster, _Your Majesty_ , but we two know the _true_ monster here, _do we not?_ "


End file.
